MIL wants to be mum

[BoyTwinsMum]

I would be very grateful for any advice on this. A few weeks ago my mother in law told one of my twins (boys age 6) that she wanted to be their mother. He then elaborated when recounting this to me, saying my MIL wanted to overthrow me and kill me and be the queen of this family. I don't quite know why he elaborated like this but he insisted that she had said to him that she wanted to be their mother and look after them.
That twin is currently staying with MIL and FIL as the other twin has had pneumonia and is with me 400 miles away at my mum's.
When I phoned my son at their house he said "mummy" very excitedly but then said- you are not my mummy any more, nanny is. MIL shouted out: "just while you're not here of course." FIL snatched the phone and said: that's ridiculous, it's just something he's made up and sought to reassure me.
Since I had the twins i have had a strained relationship with my MIL. It is obvious that she feels jealous of me and I secretly feels she hates me as she is always sending cutting texts and emails.
Please does anyone have any advice about how to deal with this? Thanks very much!

Agree re "turns" but I don't think that living alone should mean that the whole family spends every xmas with the OP's mum, I wouldn't expect that if I lived alone when older. I would expect that some xmases I spent alone or with friends or relatives other than my children.
It does sound as though the older generation's wants took priority over keeping the family unit together though and the 2 parents reverted to teenager "spending xmas with MY parents" mode rather than staying at home with the kids and inviting people round.

Since I had the twins i have had a strained relationship with my MIL. It is obvious that she feels jealous of me and I secretly feels she hates me as she is always sending cutting texts and emails.

She recently had heart trouble and I would send similar emails/texts to her wishing her well as my husband was sending. He would get back lovely kisses and I would get things like: "of course I'm not alright" and "don't you realise how serious this is".

The Mummy thing. The fact you son was upset about it - and that he felt

While not going as far as some posters, I think there is cause for concern here.

if your husband will not stand up for you it is very upsetting, both the original problem and the fact that well - a woman wants to know that she comes first with her DP, not the man's mother! Being dismissed or unsupported makes everything, including one's own reactions, worse.

I think that this needs to be talked about with your husband becuase you and he need to stand firm together and he needs to put you first.

It is possible that she is pretty toxic - it's also possible that it's not as bad as all that. But the fact that she is responding differently to pretty similar emails from you and from your DP, is concerning. It does look like there's possibly some sort of power struggle here and it's one you need to win.

Is it possible to talk to her direct and say look, please don't let him call you Mummy again? and depending on her response, then either things will be improved or else you can decide to simply let your boys go up there less, or for a shorter time. it will mean fights with her and perhaps your DP, but you have a right to be spoken to decently by her as by anyone else and her attitude atm is not pleasant.

and yes, there's a lot of hysteria on this thread. It might be a bit unusual to split the twins up for xmas, but it's surely not worth the outrage that's going on? I mean ... not that big a deal!

My boys would not be happy at being separated over Christmas, and the family at 2 different ends of the country. I can well imagine the one that is away with MIL saying he is sad and missing the others and MiL saying "don't worry, I can do what mummy usually does while she isn't here."

I think next year you need to be firm with both sets of grandparents (and dh if necessary) and say "we are a family, we are having a family Christmas, as most normal people do, and if that means us 4 staying here in our own home, and inlaws coming to us then so be it. If they don't want to come at Xmas then the 4 of us will visit them at new year or something."

You need to get back some control of your OWN family, OP. Put the 4 of you as a unit first, as a priority.

I also meant to say, if I and one of my sons were not well then my dh would be coming to where WE are to help look after us. How come he didn't do that? I didn't think pneumonia was catching? You both seem to be relying on your own parents too much as if you were teenagers still rather than each other as husband and wife.

there's a lot of hysteria on this thread.

How patronising!

The fact that a family has to split over Christmas because they can't agree who to spend it with is concerning.

Not "that big a deal", granted but then I don't think anyone has actually become hysterical or suggested phoning SS.

It does, however, add a new dimension to what is known about the family dynamics and someone, maybe MIL, maybe DH, maybe someone else, is clearly playing power games here.

You must have missed the part when posters were suggesting cutting all contact with MIL then because she was "sick and twisted" then Goldmandra because that's a proportionate and sensible reaction to the issue

Oh my goodness.

Don't those of you who are posting telling the OP how to live her Xmas need to step back a bit? Are all your lives perfect?

You may have a preference for spending your Xmas together and never alternating, but that's your choice. Just because another family does something that's not the same as you, doesn't mean they are wrong, or immoral, or need their heads examining.

That's the trouble with MN at times- people ask a question then find their entire lives are being criticised by self-appointed 'experts' in family life.

a proportionate and sensible reaction to the issue

Not in you opinion perhaps but it does depend on how you interpret the behaviour the op has described.

Just because another family does something that's not the same as you, doesn't mean they are wrong, or immoral, or need their heads examining.

Not at all but it does beg the question who is driving such unusual behaviour? If it's right for the four people concerned that's fine but if it's the result of power games by the OP's wider family that is a concern.

'A concern'?

A concern to whom?

You?

It may concern you but it's really nothing to do with you, is it?

Jaffacakes: I would say that how the OP chose to spend Xmas is part of the very problem that she is posting about. In ordinary circumstances then we might find it just a bit odd but think "oh well, each to their own". Here, though, the possible reasons behind it might go some way to explaining why the grandparents seem to still have a hold over what 2 grown adults do with their Xmas, resulting in a family with 2 young children being separated over Xmas (and ill too) and resulting in one of the children getting the impression from somewhere that granny has become mummy.

It may concern you but it's really nothing to do with you, is it?

The OP is free, as is everyone who uses MN to ignore the comments she doesn't find useful

Well for those who think it's hysterical, I am someone raised by a grandmother who took me away from my birth mother. It does happen. I am now out of contact with my grandmother as I believe her to be a nasty, manipulative and jealous woman.

I do find it odd, anyone encouraging a child to call them mummy, under any circumstances. What's wrong with a simple 'you will be missing mummy but I live you very much and will look after you. Would you like to phone her, draw her a picture etc' It sounds at worst a bit deranged and at best trying to invalidate feelings and sweeping them under the carpet.

What is just as odd however, is splitting twins up at Christmas.

I wonder if your MIL herself thinks it's odd that the 4 of you are not together at Christmas? If she's a wierd type anyway I can see her having a ball with that one - I bet she's reading all sorts of things into it: you favour the twin who stayed with you hence she feels you are neglecting the one staying with her and she has taken it upon herself to feel sorry for him and tell FIL within earshot that she can be his mummy etc etc. All sorts of rubbish like that. Or that you and dh are having problems etc etc

Yes, I'm sure it all IS a load of rubbish but to a vindictive MIL, splitting the family at Xmas is just giving her ammunition.

Next year, don't even think about splitting up. Stay together as a 4, have people stay or don't have them, or all go to one or the other grandparents' house. If MIL is an unhinged vindictive type she'll see anything else as an opportunity to divide and conquer.

Ps I also agree with a PP who said that choosing to not go to PIL when it's "their" turn could also be seen by a snub by them and further damage the strained relationship with your MIL.

Curly how do you get from 2 adults choosing to spend time with their respective parents to ' parents still having a hold over them'?

The OP stated facts.
You've gone further to make judgements about the 4 people involved.

The OP didn't ask for opinions on this and no, it's not remotely part of the original problem because there may be other occasions when the GP babysits or plays host in their own home and wants to call herself 'mummy'.

Because it is on the one occasion of the year that most people make the effort to come together and spend it together as a family. Put a deliberate choice NOT to, together with the MIL problems described by OP and yes, I will feel free to link the two together and suggest that the combination may have had some bearing on whatever is going on in MIL's head.

We are all allowed our opinion, Jaffa. You have stated that you don't think their Xmas choices had a bearing on anything the OP is worried about. I'M suggesting that it might be a possibility. A couple of others have too. I am allowed to do that. The OP can accept or reject that theory based on the many further details that she has not divulged on here, but for you to say that I am being judgemental for having a different opinion to yours, well, I think that's just wrong. But I'm not judging you for it.

We are all allowed our opinion, Jaffa.

It would appear that some people don't believe that to be the case unless our opinion coincides with theirs.

middleclassdystopia I know it happens, I know how manipulative and poisonous some people can be and I wish I didn't, really do :s . Just wasn't sure that it was that bad from what the OP was saying. It might be, or it might not be; there just wasn't enough background info for me to see the grandmother taking over the son(s) as a real threat (yet).

What a strange dynamic you have going on. With regards to your MIL wanting to be mother to your child, this may well be the case but that's a mighty big conclusion to come to on the information provided. However, splitting your family up because their Mum and Dad couldn't agree who to spend Christmas with sounds like a far greater issue.

I love Christmas but I am always staggered by people's reactions (getting into debt, 'taking turns' with the outlaws etc) to a few days.

A consequence of your mothers anxiety is that if she won't travel and you live far away then she won't have you around every Christmas. Your strained relationship with your MIL has probably played a greater influence in who you chose to spend Christmas with but your decision wasn't just about you.

On the information provided your MIL sounds a little strange but still not enough info to conclude that she hates you.

It's time you and your husband started acting like a team and learn to compromise without your children being effected.

Oh FGS- I really think this has got out of perspective!

It's nothing more than 'I'm your mummy now when mummy isn't here.'

All this speculation about them almost kidnapping the child is really, really silly.

2 phone conversations when you are 400 miles away doesn't show or prove anything.

Talk about over reacting!

I agree with this. You do realise at the end of the day she loves your son. You know he is safe and being well looked after and by him feeling safe and secure at your MIL you can devote your time to your other child. If you really don't want to drive a wedge between you, don't go in all gone blazing.

Guns blazing.

It's nothing more than 'I'm your mummy now when mummy isn't here.'

It's amazing how people can know exactly what was said and how it was intended with such certainty when they haven't even met the family concerned!

FWIW I have been a childminder, a nanny and cared for my godson for weeks at a time and never, in all those years, have I ever felt it appropriate to call myself Mummy to one of those children or told them that I was undertaking the role of mother in the absence of their own mother. Even in my relationship with my godson, who, for years, spent more time with me than with his parents, had a very deep attachment to me and whose own mother died when he was 10, my identity was never confused with that of his mother.

Children have occasionally called me Mummy by accident and I have always either ignored it or, if necessary, offered a sensitive correction.

Anyone who tells someone else's child that they are taking the role of Mummy is either adopting the child, very weird or has a hidden agenda.

There are clearly issues with your MIL and you, however, beware of taking the whole Queen coup plot at face value.

I went away for work once. Once I was gone and my Mum and DP were looking after him, he informed them that they were not to call him by his name, X. X had gone away to stay in Australia until Mummy came home, and while he was gone, a cousin or secret brother, Y would be staying with them, and would he please call him Y. Y had been thrown from a moving car by his own mother, with only his blanket for company.

He kept this up for 5 days. When I returned he resumed being X again.

And was seemingly unharmed and undistressed by the whole thing.

And your DS may be feeling angry (with you- in the irrational way they have) for being with the other DT and not with him.

But a careful conversation about making sure that a GP relationship is a good addition rather than being seen by the kids as competitive or a substitute.